Hacker News Reader

Comment by GeekyBear | Hacker News Reader

If you focus on the fact that Google fraudulently marketed an operating system that allows users to run any software they like (until they successfully drove other open options out of the marketplace) you have all the legal justification you need to force Google to back down.

View on HN

What country requires that?

In the US, there's no requirement for a company to honor the claims of prior advertisements for things that they might do in the future for a different product. And even if a company does lie about the features of their product, advertising law does not require a company to change the features of their product to meet those claims. What could be required is a change in the advertising, or a refund for people who bought the devices under the false terms.

But if you advertise a certain side of feature features in a phone three years ago, and sell something completely different next year, that's entirely legal.

It's certainly possible for the same company to create an open platform in addition to a separate platform that is a walled garden.

Microsoft Windows is an open platform that is open to running whatever software you want, while Xbox is a walled garden.

That doesn't mean that Google can fraudulently market an open platform and then close it after driving competing platforms out of the market without running afoul of antitrust law.

However, if Google wants to create a new platform that is a walled garden, as long as they are honest with users about what they are selling, that would be perfectly legal everywhere except the EU.

What? The parent comment alleges that your claim that Google engaged in fraudulent marketing is false, but your reply just restates your original claim without addressing their argument.

> except the EU

Also Australia, Japan, Brazil, and the United Kingdom, with others sure to follow.

> That doesn't mean that Google can fraudulently market an open platform and then close it after driving competing platforms out of the market without running afoul of antitrust law.

But they haven't done these things. If they violate the law, they will have violated the law. Google hasn't imposed the discussed requirements yet. However, even if they imposed them today, I do not believe they currently advertise that they allow side-loading.

Also the commercial market for sideloading is basically nil. I'm not sure what antitrust angle you'd take here -- whose market would they unfairly disadvantaging? Basically all antitrust actions thus far regarding mobile platforms have been regarding their gigantic commercial app stores. That is entirely unaffected by these changes.

> However, if Google wants to create a new platform that is a walled garden, as long as they are honest with users about what they are selling, that would be perfectly legal everywhere except the EU.

The policy they are proposing is the same policy that Apple recently switched to in order to comply with EU regulations! Apple is doing it precisely because it complies with the EU's demands.

> Basically all antitrust actions thus far regarding mobile platforms have been regarding their gigantic commercial app stores. That is entirely unaffected by these changes.

This is more or less true. Epic Games is most likely not going to fight Google any further in the U.S., assuming they actually get what the recent injunction promised them (which does not include unrestricted sideloading, but does include better protections for verified third party app stores on Android).

But at the same time, I don't think it's invalid to say that antitrust law provides a pretty solid framework for a hypothetical "sideloading mandate". The EU's Digital Markets Act comes very close, but falls short of declaring exactly what a "third party app store" should be. That is, "an independent source of applications without any oversight whatsoever from $BIG_TECH_CO".

However, they probably specifically avoided doing that because they knew it would lead to malware on iOS, and a huge win for Apple in the court of public opinion. Will the EU or any of the other regulators actually ever go any further than "third party app stores"? Probably not, to be honest.

This is a massive stretch. What marketing campaign said that?

And even if it did, it’s not like marketing campaigns make claims that last forever.

Red Lobster doesn’t owe you anything because endless crab legs isn’t a thing anymore.

embrace, extend, extinguish

Now I’m just talking to a parrot whose been living in Richard Stallman’s house.

You keep repeating this argument, but it doesn't hold up upon critical examination.

I already replied here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45512015

I think the reason you keep reiterating this is because once you realize that there is no legal justification to go after Google for this move under current US law, the only real solution becomes obvious: new legislation, and you really don't want that, because you know it will apply to Apple devices as well, which would be The End of the World.

If you want to see what the solution to this problem looks like, take a look at the bipartisan App Store Freedom Act: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/3209...

(This is before Apple/Google lobbying efforts result in either the death of the bill or a bunch of exceptions allowing companies to do "notarization" or "developer verification".)

Sorry, but when you create an open platform, you are choosing to create a new market where antitrust law will apply.

Google has to live with the consequences of it's decisions.

Open platforms mean more growth more quickly, but they also place restrictions on what you are allowed to do in the future.

Antitrust law applies to any company of massive size that engages in anticompetitive conduct, not just companies who create "open platforms" [1], otherwise there would never be any antitrust cases. An antitrust case would be your best hope under current law, but it already happened and the remedies did not include a mandate to keep allowing unrestricted sideloading indefinitely.

Anyway, you're now moving the goalpost, because you were originally talking about a case based on the premise that they engaged in fraudulent marketing, not a case based on the premise that they currently hold a monopoly. The former would never hold up in court, the latter already happened but the remedies were insufficient to stop Developer Verification.

[1] The reason Apple wasn't forced to allow third party app stores as a result of Epic Games v. Apple was not because iOS is a "closed platform"; they simply weren't found to be a monopoly in the "mobile gaming transactions" market (which does not preclude them from eventually being found a monopoly in the "mobile app distribution" market).